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Thursday, January 19, 2012

Zebra-Inspired cake

This is Mehwish, back with a cool cake technique I tried last week. School may be in session, but it can't take me away from baking :P

Similar to marbling, the technique that I learned requires using two contrasting colors of batter, which are layered into one pan to create... stripes! These "zebra" stripes will awe the cake-consumer, who will question you over and over till you tell them how simple it is to create it.

This post is more about the procedure than the recipe, so choose your favorite white cake recipe and scroll down to be enlightened :)

WHAT YOU WILL NEED:

Cake batter, prepared for one cake and split equally into two bowls

Food coloring or cocoa powder

Cake pan, the appropriate size for your recipe (I used two pans to make two layers of cake, but you can use just one)

Two 1/2 cup measuring cups

STEP 1:

Mix food coloring (or cocoa powder) into one of the bowls of cake batter, making sure you add enough so that the baked cake will be dark. I used black food coloring for this cake.

Now you should have two bowls of cake batter, one light and one dark.

Prepare your pan by lightly greasing it and placing a cut-out circle of parchment paper in it. This will make it so much easier to get your baked cake out of the pan all in one piece!

STEP 2:

Now, use a separate 1/2 cup measuring cup for each batter to pour the batter into the pan.

Start with any color. Fill the cup and carefully pour it in the center of the pan. Don't try to spread the batter out or anything.

Now fill another cup with the second batter and pour that in the center of the pan (right on top of the first cupful of batter).

As you pour, you will notice that the batter in the pan is spreading
until it reaches the sides and the pan eventually fills to around
halfway up.

Keep pouring, alternating the batters until you have poured all of the cake batter from both bowls into the pan(s).

Bake the cake at the correct temperature for the recipe you chose.

I torted the slight dome off of my cake layers so that they would be nice and flat when I decorated the cake. The pattern on this layer looks epic. In fact, I think it looks kind of like a peacock tail feather!

Here I placed the first layer on a cake board and spread it with a layer of strawberry glaze.

Then some sliced strawberries...

And finally, the whipped cream filling! This scrumptious filling was then covered with the second layer of cake. You can use any filling that you want, of course.

My parents had just brought home a whole box full of fresh organic strawberries so I sneaked some for my cake ;)

Here is a photo of the ganache I made to cover the cake with. For this, I used semisweet chocolate that I had at home.

Yummyy.

After covering the cake with ganache, I decorated with more strawberries.

And drizzled chocolate over it all...

I found these coffee wafers at my favorite Asian grocery store, so I bought some for cake decoratin' purposes :D

I like how the stripes on the wafers match the inside of the cake.

Andd it's done!

Those strawberries look nom-worthy, no?

I finally cut the cake! Stripy :D

Not only did this cake look really good, but it tasted amazing too. The wafers were fun to eat and the strawberries were really sweet.

Hope you found this post helpful and enjoyed the pictures! DO try this at home, and share in the comments below if you do!